


like a drum my heart never stops beating

by skyepoots



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2765141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyepoots/pseuds/skyepoots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antoine Triplett is dead, except he isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a drum my heart never stops beating

**Author's Note:**

> We all need more Trip in our lives. Slightly cracky at the end. Title from Gone by Phillip Phillips.

The last thing he sees is stone covering Skye’s body.

The last thing he feels is stone covering his body.

And then he can’t see or feel anything anymore.

He’s dead, except he isn’t.

The stone breaks and he’s left standing there, watching Skye bringing the Earth down around her. He sees her head turn toward his body, and her expression changes and tears are running down her face and she’s crumpled over, crying.

“No, no, no, no. Trip.” She mumbles.

“Skye, it’s okay. I’m right here.” He consoles her. But she keeps on crying. “Skye, we need to get out of here.”

She keeps crying and he can’t stop her. All he can do is watch, and for what seems like hours but is actually only a few minutes, he does.

After a few minutes, she stops and wipes up her tears. She goes over to his clothes, and picks them up and folds them like she should have folded the laundry back at the base. (He always folds laundry for her.)

She walks out of the temple holding his clothes in her hands, and he follows close behind. They see Mack and Coulson holding each other, and she starts crying again when she breaks the news to them.

“Trip, Trip’s dead.” They don’t press on. All they do is try to choke back their own tears and walk away with her.

“Guys, I’m not dead. I’m right here!” he yells. But they don’t hear him.

And that is when he realizes that he is dead, at least to them. He feels very much alive, but maybe that’s what being a ghost is like. He’s never known any other ghosts and he doesn’t have anything to compare this feeling to. But right now, he feels pretty ghostly.

He follows them out of the tunnels, up the rope, and he sees Fitz and Simmons hugging.

“Where’s Trip?” Fitz asks, and all there’s silence.

“He’s… dead. ” Simmons says. “He can’t be dead. Maybe the city just co-opted him just like it did with… Mack.” Her eyes focus on Mack, who looks more like her friend than her enemy, and then there’s nothing she can do but face what she’s been told. She cries. Fitz cries. Everyone begins crying. He doesn’t know how to stop it.

They all leave the fortress and walk back to the bus.

“May, I need you to come back with Hunter and Morse,” Coulson says to May on his phone. Within fifteen minutes, they’re at the bus and Coulson has to break the news to them. Everyone is frozen in shock until a voice breaks through the silence.

“Didn’t think you’d leave me behind, did you?” Raina says as she walks onto the plane.

Almost immediately, Skye comes toward her and grabs her shirt. “You killed Trip. He died because of you. You don’t get to walk onto our bus, and talk about leaving someone behind, when we didn’t even have the luxury of choosing whether to leave him behind or not. You hear me? He turned to fucking dust. There’s no body to leave behind, you spiny freak.”

May has to come and pull her away.

“You don’t mean that Skye,”

“Yes, I do.”

“I didn’t kill him, Skye. The Obelisk didn’t let him live. But us, it gave us powers. Look at you, Skye. That earthquake was all you.” Skye breaks out of May’s grasp and lunges toward Raina again when Trip talks, even if no one could hear him.

“Stop. I’m okay. I’m dead, but I’m okay. It’s all gonna be okay. I wish you could see and hear me and- ”

Fitz cuts him off by saying “Oh my god.” Everyone turns toward him, but all he does is point in Trip’s direction. A collective gasp goes through the Bus.

“Trip,” Skye says. “You’re alive.”

“You can see me?” He asks.

“Yeah, I can see you. All of you.”

“But what happened to me?”

“It seems like you turned into some sort of gas, or vapor.” Simmons tells him, smiling.

“Yeah, but then why couldn’t anyone hear me?”

“I don’t think vapor can make sound.” Fitz answers.

“True. Why isn’t anyone else saying anything? You guys just saw that I’m alive and you’re just standing there with mouths open.”

“Trip, I don’t know how to say it, but you can turn into vapor. Your clothes can’t.” He raises an eyebrow at Skye’s statement. “Dude, you’re naked.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this idea sprung up from the fandom's invisible Trip idea and my own theory that Trip became a gas (a superpower that I think exists in the comics from this one post. I'm not sure).


End file.
